1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to provision of spring support members on an electrical terminal, to reduce vibration of the terminal within a corresponding electrical connector housing cavity.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electrical connectors subjected to vibration, for example electrical connectors in an automobile, may fail due to fretting corrosion. The vibrations can cause relative micro-movements between mating contacts which is the cause of fretting corrosion. In order to reduce relative movements between mating contacts, it is known to provide terminals with inner contact bodies having supple longitudinal spring sections between the contact section and the conductor connection section of the terminal. The longitudinal spring thus decouples the contact section from the rest of the connector and allows it to float freely with the mating contact such that no micro-movements therebetween occur. An example of such a receptacle terminal is described in European patent application 492479.
It is common to provide an outer spring body to the inner contact bodies, the outer spring bodies comprising a stronger and more resilient material that the inner contact body. The outer spring body may serve a number of purposes, for example providing resilient locking lances for retention of the terminal in a cavity housing, or for outer protection of the inner contact, or for having spring arms to increase the contact spring force of the inner contact body contact arms. Outer spring bodies are also very useful when the inner contact body has a supple longitudinal spring for allowing floating movement of the contact section. The contact section must be prevented from rubbing against the housing cavity walls, but also must be protected due to the supple spring which can be easily damaged by stubbing of the complementary terminal against the contact section.
One of the problems of prior art terminals is that there is a certain amount of play between the terminal and the housing cavity in order to allow insertion of the terminal therein, which under vibratory conditions causes chattering of the terminal within the cavity. Chattering can be the source of large inertial forces which may causing relative movements between mating contacts, whether they are endowed with longitudinal resilient springs or not.
It would therefore be desirable to reduce chattering of terminals within housing cavities.